Hit Man - Brian Hughes [14]
A month after the Finch fight, and a week before his twentieth birthday, Hearns was paired against Venezuela’s Pedro Rojas. The South American was the Central American welterweight champion and had been ranked just one place behind Hearns in the Boxing News ratings. Burly and square-jawed, he claimed a record of twenty-four wins in twenty-five fights and was a rugged hombre: one pre-bout training session with a Detroit sparring partner had to be halted after it exploded into a furious exchange of fouls. “Since nobody seemed to know if the Detroiter could take a punch,” reported Eddie Cool in Boxing News, “the South American speculated that he would find out for himself by launching a two-handed assault as soon as the first bell sounded.”
It was a big mistake. Within twenty seconds, Hearns had jarred the Venezuelan with a left hook followed by his trademark overhand right. A thundering follow-up volley saw the referee step in to give the beleaguered Rojas a standing eight count. This was followed by another volley, and another standing count, before the referee wisely waved it over. The “fight” had lasted just sixty-nine seconds. “We want Leonard, we want Leonard,” chanted the crowd of 8,547, as Sugar Ray and his famous trainer, Angelo Dundee, watched from first-row seats. “Hearns was devastating,” conceded Dundee, “but it was over too quick.” Others speculated that Dundee had learned plenty – not least to keep his fighter a million miles from the Detroit bomber. Promoter Bob Arum, also there as a spectator, lavished praise on Hearns. “Nobody, not even heavyweights, hit that fast and that hard,” he said.
“Twenty years from now,” said Hearns afterwards, “I want people to compare the fighters of today to Tommy Hearns.”
Within a couple of days, Hearns’s backers were in Arum’s New York office, asking for fights against a series of opponents, including Carlos Palomino, Pipino Cuevas and even middleweight champion Hugo Corro. Present at the meeting was the twenty-eight-year-old promoter Don Majeski, who had booked Rojas for the Detroit bout. Majeski was later asked how good Hearns really was. Could he take a punch? Did he have heart? Could he stand up under rough going?
“How can you tell,” replied Majeski, “about a guy who knocks out his opponents in less than three rounds?”
HEARNS WAS SETTING the division on fire, but he faced a series of formidable hurdles if he was to realise his dream of a world title. Indeed the welterweights at this time constituted the fiercest division in boxing, with an array of competitive talent not seen for decades. As in most weight classes, there were two “world” champions: Pipino Cuevas for the World Boxing Association, and Carlos Palomino for the World Boxing Council. Both were Mexican, though Palomino had lived most of his life in California, and both were redoubtable. Cuevas, the younger of the two, was a puncher of terrifying power who had put several opponents in hospital. His defence was porous but his opponents were usually so busy trying to protect themselves that it didn’t matter. Palomino was a more considered fighter, a cool, experienced body puncher with a sold chin and excellent stamina.
The leading contenders for their titles were, if anything, even more daunting. Wilfred Benitez, a young Puerto Rican of preternatural wizardry, had already won a version of the light-welterweight title and was now on the warpath for more honours. Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, the undisputed lightweight champion who had lost only once in almost seventy contests, was also moving up the divisions and had his dark eyes set on the welterweight crown. And TV darling Sugar Ray Leonard was matching Hearns step for step in his inexorable march up the rankings.
Certainly there was no time to take the foot off the pedal, and Steward arranged for Rudy Barro, a California-based Filipino, to give Hearns another test in his boxing education. He had fought in fifty contests before facing the Motor City sensation at the Cobo Arena and his confidence was high after winning his last four bouts. His